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Cheltenham is the place to be this weekend

Champion Hurdle contenders from both sides of the Irish sea set to clash in the Boylesports Hurdle

Alan Lee Racing Correspondent

December 10 2007, 12:00am, The Times

It used to be said that the Cheltenham Festival dominated the jumps season to an unhealthy degree. Nonsense, of course, as every sport craves a natural climax to its calendar. But these days, while the Festival remains pre-eminent, the domination factor applies more generally to Cheltenham as a venue.

Nothing exemplified this more tellingly than the Sunday of the Open meeting last month. Howling gales, bitter temperatures and driving rain turning rapidly to snow. The foullest weather many of us could recall for a raceday. And yet more than 15,000 braved the conditions to attend racing’s theatre of dreams.

Naturally, it was the smallest crowd of a fixture that packed in 70,000 over three days. That aggregate was a record, and another was achieved at…